Top all-time · #3038
Paras Chopra
Personal blog · paraschopra.com/blogphilosophyaistartups
Paras Chopra writes Inverted Passion, a personal blog at paraschopra.com about philosophy, ai and startups. Since 2008, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 118 times, most often “Compilation of revenue figures for different kinds of startups”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-09, and you can follow it by feed.
I’m Paras Chopra and this is my digital home. These days, I’m building an AI lab called Lossfunk. Explore 👉 Start here to get an overview 🖱️ Explore all my projects 🌱 My knowledge garden 🧠 Mental models for entrepreneurs (my book) 🧵 (250+) Twitter threads I’ve written Recent essays All essays and po
Most-linked posts?
- Compilation of revenue figures for different kinds of startups3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-06-06
- Startup: an emotional roller coaster ride2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-03-08
- How to find startup ideas that make money2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-05-18
- Tell HN: How to do research on a new idea/target industry using Twitter2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-10-30
- The Essential Startup Team2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-03-15
- Startup evolution – from idea to IPO in 10 really hard steps2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-11-02
- Sorry, your “cool” webapp is probably not going to make money2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-01-10
- How making money changed my perspective on startup ideas2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-01
What Hacker News says?
Fantastic Parody. Though I wrote a real one on life at my startup here http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/startup-an-emotional-ro... I personally find honest accounts of day of life in any profession (not just startup, but a doctor, firefighter, airline pilot, ice cream vendor) very, very juicy and interesting. Gives a glimpse of what it is to live in a different life. Maybe a bit voyeuristic, but what better way…
Comment linking /blog/personal/startup-an-emotional-roller-coaster-ride.htm
on “A day in the life of a startup founder”Submitted The real use of money is to buy freedom as a story · 357 points
HN discussionWhat I'm not able to reconcile is if the despair and anxiety resulting from nihilism is something that should be treated . I'm a staunch believer in existential nihilism (and hence believe life is inherently purposeless and pointless), so time to time it gives a sharp tinge of sadness on the lines of _why am I existing at all_. It's not a suicidal feeling, but very close to it. I have (rightly, so) convinced myself…
Comment linking /blog/personal/startups-and-nihilism-dont-go-together.htm
on “Depression lies”Submitted How to find startup ideas that make money as a story · 305 points
HN discussionI may be in the minority here (and I certainly have nothing against Mark), but I really dislike such _implicit_ glamorization and heroism of entrepreneur hardships. There two specific problems with the post: a) in general (unless you are lucky), all good things require hard work so what's so special about entrepreneurship?; b) this interpretation of entrepreneurship is clouded by a specific type of startup (and I am…
Comment linking /blog/personal/startup-an-emotional-roller-coaster-ride.htm
on “Entrepreneurshit”Submitted Sorry, your “cool” webapp is probably not going to make money as a story · 189 points
HN discussionHere you go: http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/appointment-reminder-pa... Hope you like it :)
Comment linking /blog/personal/appointment-reminder-patricks-new-startup-launches.htm
on “Appointment Reminder Launches”Submitted Validate your startup idea by asking 3 simple questions as a story · 97 points
HN discussionGreat job, thanks for sharing! I had blogged about revenues of some more companies here: http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/compilation-revenue-fig...
Comment linking /blog/personal/compilation-revenue-figures-different-startups.htm
on “Highly Successful Bootstrapped Startups”Submitted Why time is not running out as a story · 89 points
HN discussionWhen I was in high-school, just out of interest, I implemented a bunch of AI algorithms (Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms, Self Organizing Maps, Cellular Automata and (most fun) Genetic Programming): http://paraschopra.com/sourcecode/ Genetic Programming part was most fun because it required me to use Python language in a way I didn't use before (passing functions as variables and making trees of different Python…
Comment linking /sourcecode/
on “Ask HN: What is the most difficult tech/dev challenge you ever solved?”Submitted How making money changed my perspective on startup ideas as a story · 85 points
HN discussionFrom the links at the bottom of the OP, it would appear so: http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/how-making-money-change...
Comment linking /blog/personal/how-making-money-changed-my-perspective-on-startup-ideas.htm
on “Sorry, your “cool” webapp is probably not going to make money”Submitted Do a startup or travel around the world? as a story · 67 points
HN discussionMain methodology was guest blogging. I contributed exhaustive articles in publications such as Smashing Magazine, CopyBlogger, etc. The articles were purely educational in nature, taught people what A/B testing was and VWO was introduced as one of the of the new tools to do A/B testing easily. The second big focus was on passion for feedback from early customers and incorporating that into the product. Really, our p…
Comment linking /blog/
on “Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers”Submitted Startup: an emotional roller coaster ride as a story · 43 points
HN discussionThe link for "Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money" is: http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g...
Comment linking /blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-going-to-make-money.htm
on “Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers”Submitted Compilation of revenue figures for different kinds of startups as a story · 40 points
HN discussionParas's (founder of Wingify) blog posts on Sorry your cool web app is probably not going to make money http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/webapp-is-not-g... How to find startup ideas that make money http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-sta... might be appropriate given his stunning success (congrats Paras) The other great thing about Wingify is that they aimed from the beginning at a gl…
Comment linking /blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-startup-ideas-that-make-money.htm
on “Bootstrapped Wingify moves to a bigger office and hits 1600+ customers”Submitted How I built a web app in six days for only Rs. 350 ($8.75) as a story · 40 points
HN discussionGood read, thanks. Here's similar : http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/11/using-adwo... http://blog.stevebarsh.com/barsh_bits/2009/01/5-surprising-w... http://blog.stevebarsh.com/barsh_bits/2009/01/5-surprising-w... http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-do-resea...
Comment linking /blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-do-research-on-a-new-ideatarget-industry-using-twitter.htm
on “Ask HN: Methods for finding niche business opportunities”Submitted What matters in life (and what doesn't) as a story · 29 points
HN discussionWhen I was in initial years of programming my first hardest problem was implementing backpropagation in VB 6.0 http://paraschopra.com/tutorials/nn/ (2003) Then the next hardest problem I found was implementing Genetic Programming in Python (year 2005) http://paraschopra.com/sourcecode/GP/index.php It was fun but extremely hard for me (at that age!). After that in 2008, I think the trickiest part for me was to write…
Comment linking /sourcecode/GP/index.php
on “Ask HN: What's the hardest problem you've ever solved?”Submitted Golden Rule for Startups as a story · 25 points
HN discussionI wrote about this in my blog: * How to find ideas that make money: http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-find-sta... * How to validate your startup idea: http://paraschopra.com/blog/entrepreneurship/validate-startu... I am a big believer of market-based approach of doing startups. So, instead of trying to come up with a startup idea out of the blue, why don't you identify a market or an opportunity an…
Comment linking /blog/entrepreneurship/validate-startup-idea.htm
on “How Do You Find New Problems to Solve or Ideas for Products To Work On?”Submitted Digital Evolution in Python: PyPond as a story · 25 points
HN discussionI had made a small library for Genetic Programming in Python. Have a look: http://paraschopra.com/sourcecode/GP/index.php The problem with genetic programming is that as soon as you start a approaching a program of reasonable complexity, even small mutations start wreaking havoc to whole program logic. If we make a biological analogy, it is like evolving an elephant from an ape-like ancestor. Evolution in real world…
Comment linking /sourcecode/GP/index.php
on “Baby Steps into Genetic Programming”Submitted The Turing-roulette Game as a story · 23 points
HN discussionI will tell you my story. A few months ago, I got all excited about these ebooks and all. So, I picked up a topic I could write an ebook on 'How to Start An Online Business' http://paraschopra.com/business/ First I tried launching it as a premium ebook, priced at $65 with some 6-7 pages long copy (see the source code of the page, the long copy is still there) I didn't sell even a single copy. (Though I must admit, t…
Comment linking /business/
on “Ask YC: Anyone actually making money selling ebooks/digital goods?”Submitted The only alternative is to work harder as a story · 16 points
HN discussion
